Cricklewood’s Lynsey de Paul dies

October 8, 2014

Singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul died at the age of 64 on October 1. Lynsey, born in Cricklewood, was a perky singer-songwriter behind several Top 10 hits in the 1970s and she narrowly failed to snatch a second consecutive victory for the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Rock Bottom in 1977.

Lynsey de Paul’s biggest hit, Sugar Me, reached No 5 in the singles chart in 1972. She was also a prolific composer of television theme tunes, including those for the ITV sitcom No, Honestly, which starred Pauline Collins and John Alderton, and Esther Rantzen’s BBC series Hearts Of Gold.

Lynsey dated a succession of high-profile men, including George Best, Ringo Starr, Dodi Fayed and the film stars James Coburn and Sean Connery.

The daughter of a property developer, Lynsey de Paul was born Lynsey Monckton Rubin in Cricklewood on June 11 1950. Educated at South Hampstead High School, she had what she later described as a disciplined childhood.

Her breakthrough came early in 1972 as co-writer (with Ron Roker) of The Fortunes’ Top 10 hit Storm in a Teacup. A few months later she recorded her own hit song Sugar Me, which also reached the Top 10, the first of 14 British Top 40 hits she wrote for a variety of pop artists over the following five years.

For her own first hit ballad, Won’t Somebody Dance With Me? (1974), she became the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello Award, a second followed a year later for No, Honestly, the theme tune to the hit ITV comedy, and which became another UK Top 10 hit.

She later went into television production, making travelogues and hosting her own television programmes such as Club Vegetarian and Shopper’s Heaven.

In 1976 she received the Woman of the Year Award For Music from the Variety Club of Great Britain. The British jeans industry named her Rear of the Year in 1985, an award she accepted by thanking the organisers “from the heart of my bottom”.

Lynsey de Paul, who was unmarried, apparently suffered a brain haemorrhage after complaining of severe headaches.